In Books: A Memoir Larry McMurtry writes: [I]t puzzles me how bookless our ranch house was. There must have been a Bible, but I don’t remember ever seeing it. My father did read the range cattle books of J. Frank Dobie, but the only one I remember seeing in our house, which, by this time, wasContinue reading “Rooms Full Of Books: Soulful Abodes”
Tag Archives: Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag’s Paragraphed Interview Answers
In his introduction to Susan Sontag: The Complete Rolling Stones Interview, Jonathan Cott writes: In one of her journal entries from 1965, Susan avowed: To give no interviews until I can sound as clear + authoritative + direct as Lillian Hellman in Paris Review.” ….as I listened to her clear, authoritative, and direct responses to myContinue reading “Susan Sontag’s Paragraphed Interview Answers”
Susan Sontag on Truth’s ‘Value’
Susan Sontag, in reviewing Simone Weil’s Selected Essays, offers some remarks on the nature and function of truth, and its placement in our schema of intellectual and emotional endeavor. In doing so, she strikes a slightly Nietzschean note: Perhaps there are certain ages which do not need truth as much as they need a deepening ofContinue reading “Susan Sontag on Truth’s ‘Value’”
The Twenties: A Rush to Judgment Would Be Premature
In ‘Semi-Charmed Life: The Twentysomethings Are Allright’, (The New Yorker, January 14 2013) Nathan Heller writes: Recently, many books have been written about the state of people in their twenties….Few decades of experience command such dazzled interest (the teen-age years are usually written up in a spirit of damage control; the literature of fiftysomethings isContinue reading “The Twenties: A Rush to Judgment Would Be Premature”
Re-Reading What One Has Read
A few days ago, I wrote a post on reading (and re-reading) what one writes. Today, I want to put down a few thoughts on the business of re-reading what one has read, sometimes willingly, sometimes not. Susan Sontag once said, ‘All great books deserve to be read five times at least.’ When asked ifContinue reading “Re-Reading What One Has Read”
Arendt and Sontag on Conservatism, Romanticism, and ‘Interesting’ Politics
Last week at Brooklyn College, the Wolfe Institute‘s Spring 2012 Faculty Study Group met to discuss Corey Robin‘s The Reactionary Mind, which aims to identify substantive theses central to that political tradition by way of an intellectual history of conservatism; more precisely, by close readings of some central works of the conservative canon. (The Faculty Study GroupContinue reading “Arendt and Sontag on Conservatism, Romanticism, and ‘Interesting’ Politics”
Samir Chopra 